Table of contents for 2023-06-08 in Mercury

A NEW report looking into the functionality of water systems across the country has produced a mixed bag of results for KwaZulu-Natal, with some systems found to be supplying quality potable water to residents, while there were concerns with others. The Blue Drop Watch Report was published by the Department of Water and Sanitation (DWS) this week, and details the state of the province’s water networks. It is informed by Technical Site Assessments (TSAs) that were done at one to two systems per Water Services Authority as part of the Blue Drop audit cycle. The water report looked at the technical overview of pipes, pumps, reservoirs, processes and water quality of water treatment plants and distribution networks. The TSA scores the systems for different aspects and the score given…

A damning report by the Auditor- General – in connection with KwaZulu-Natal’s devastating April 2022 floods – has revealed allegations of fraud and corruption within the province’s Department of Human Settlements. The report – completed in August last year and recently presented to the national Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs portfolio committee – highlights issues around the procurement and delivery of Temporary Residential Units in KZN. These include gross manipulation of procurement processes to favour pre-selected suppliers – some of whom were not qualified to do the job – and tenders being awarded to three different contractors with the same director, pointing to possible bid rigging. It also includes awards being made to contractors, where directors are government employees or have business partners who are employees of the…

In keeping with changing times and the electronic age, the court has made it clear that a valid written contract could be concluded electronically. The court said data messages or electronic signatures were now recognised in our law as equivalent to a proper basis upon which a written contract can be concluded. These remarks by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, were sparked by an application launched by Wesbank against Leon Govender for the return of an expensive sports car. The bank said Govender had fallen in arrears with his monthly payments. It emerged that the financing agreement was not concluded face-toface with Govender, but rather via an electronic process, in which Govender signed electronically for the deal. Govender claimed it was not him who bought the car, but his now…

ABOUT 10 000 Zimbabwean nationals living in South Africa have applied for assistance from their government to return home and resettle as the Zimbabwean Exemption Permit (ZEP) expires at the end of the month. Just under 200 000 Zimbabwean nationals living in South Africa on the basis of the ZEP might be forced to leave South Africa if the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria rules in favour of the South African government. The decision to discontinue the ZEP is the subject of several legal challenges. Speaking to broadcaster Newzroom Afrika, Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa, David Hamadziripi, said about 10 000 had heeded his office’s call for Zimbabweans seeking to relocate by the end of June to register and be helped. “At this point in time, we are actually working on…

ECONOMISTS have had mixed reactions to South Africa’s 0.4% GDP growth in the first quarter of 2023. The GDP growth was announced on Tuesday by Statistics SA. The pedestrian 0.4% growth meant that South Africa narrowly avoided a technical recession after the economy contracted by 1.1% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Professor Irrshad Kaseeram of the University of Zululand’s economics department said that although this was good news for South Africa, a developing country such as Brazil, which faces similar challenges as South Africa, experienced better first quarter GDP growth. “Brazil’s economy grew by 1.9%. This indicates the serious structural constraints we have in employment where unskilled and semi-skilled workers can’t find jobs due to a high wage economy that favours highly skilled workers, lack of private sector investment…

The National Prosecuting Authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) has obtained a provisional restraint order against the property of a businessman whose business is implicated in Fort Hare tender fraud. Walter Qusheka, 50, is the director of Garden to Floors PTY LTD, trading as Qush cleaning services, a company implicated in the University of Fort Hare (UFH) corruption case. The order also relates to five other defendants, as well as Qusheka’s wife, Vuyokazi Qusheka, 36. The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said the current value of the restrained assets was R14.3 million, but that value could increase as the court-appointed curator investigated the assets of the defendants. “The alleged corrupt activities at UFH where Qusheka had a contract with the university expired at the end of its determined period in 2015,” NPA…

None of us looks forward to winter. It’s such a cold, miserable season of sniffing noses and flu. But it’s during this bleak, dreary time of the year when your exotic garden has gone into slumber that some indigenous plants think it’s the opportune time to put on their annual flower show. There’s the iconic strelitzia, red hot poker, wild dagga, Cape honeysuckle and, of course, another iconic plant, the aloe. Despite what many of us think of these “bush” plants, they are cleverer than us. They choose the worst time of the year to fill the dry, drab landscape with their spectacular display of colour, not to please us but to attract the bees, butterflies and birds for pollination purposes. In return they provide them with nectar. It’s a…

The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) yesterday called on the international community to prioritise support to South Sudan to tackle the influx of returnees and asylum seekers fleeing conflict in Sudan as the country hit a dire milestone of 100 000 new arrivals. UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner for Operation Raouf Mazou said that since the start of the conflict in Sudan in mid-April, thousands of people had fled across the border daily to South Sudan, the majority of whom were South Sudanese returnees who were now coming back to the country they had once been forced to flee. Mazou said the returnees were arriving alongside refugees from Sudan and various other nationalities who South Sudan had generously welcomed. He stressed that the majority of those fleeing the violence were arriving after…

London: The European Commission has followed the US in approving the world’s first vaccine for the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), to be used by adults aged 60 and over, its maker GlaxoSmithKline said yesterday. The US approved the drug last month, while the vaccine is the culmination of a decades-long hunt to protect vulnerable people from the common illness. RSV normally causes mild, cold-like symptoms, but can be serious for infants and the elderly, as well as those with weak immune systems and underlying conditions. In severe cases it can cause pneumonia and bronchiolitis, an inflammation of the small airways deep inside the lungs. | AFP…

THE 2023 Inter-club League is upon us and discussion around club pubs between this Saturday and July 15 will focus predominantly on team performance and the decisions made by selectors. It is a fact the selection of club league sides is the most stressful time of year for the selection committee. Tension will be rife and emotions running high as members congregate around the notice board waiting for the teams to be posted each week. Only those who have been lucky enough (or unfortunate enough) to be a selector know the thankless nature of the task. There will be a few pats on the back when things go well, but selectors will take the rap and be criticised from all directions when people are aggrieved with their selection or the…

EMIRA Property Fund reported strong operational results, and a final divi- dend of 30.35 cents per share took the dividend for the nine months to March 31 to 96.78c, CEO Geoff Jennett said yesterday Net asset value per share increased by 4.2% to 1 696.60c per share. Jennett said in an online presentation that while the nine-month period could not be compared to either the prior or coming 12-month financial years, because of a change of year-end, the company was in good shape. He said the decision to change the year-end was because it needed to align the financial reporting with majority shareholder Castleview and with that of Transcend Property Fund, which it gained control of in October 2022. “Both our SA and US portfolios delivered pleasing operational performances.…

THE Special Investigating Unit (SIU) is combing through 1 482 pages of the report into corruption at Eskom, which Parliament has been pushing to get its hands on. The report details findings of the R50 million privately funded intelligence operation at Eskom by its former CEO André de Ruyter dubbed “Project Ostridge”. It allegedly links senior politicians to corruption and looting at the state-owned entity. Last year, without the board’s approval, De Ruyter commissioned the probe, which was conducted by George Fivaz Forensic and Risk (GFFR), a firm owned by former police commissioner George Fivaz. Appearing before Parliament’s finance watchdog, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), SIU head Advocate Lekgoa Mothibi confirmed they were in possession of the report. “We reached out to George Fifaz Forensics and…

Famous Indian film producer BR Chopra, in yet another box-office success in Naya Daur (Modern Challenge, 1957) has a low-level labourer at a rural factory appealing to the proprietor: “Boss, we workers realise that machines are now going to take our jobs. And we all know what great hardships will ultimately ensue for everybody around the world. “May I please appeal that the industrial engineers and business corporates of the world please sit down together and design a method where there is progress in both these areas – machines that assist production, but do not make us poor humans redundant?” That appeal was made almost 7O years ago. Since then, man-made machines have been producing everything in abundance. Everything but the one thing that is most needed – jobs! Any…

The IFP in KwaZulu-Natal has strongly condemned the alleged torching of the home of Barbie Mbatha-Mazeka – a principal at KwaNgcoyi Primary School in Nongoma. The IFP urges law-enforcement agencies to spare no effort in ensuring that the perpetrators of this heinous act are apprehended and brought to justice. The IFP firmly rejects any form of abuse and intimidation against female leaders, especially those who play a crucial role in shaping our nation’s future through education. The party is deeply concerned about the recent horrific incidents targeting principals and teachers across schools in Nongoma. In light of these alarming incidents, the IFP calls upon the MEC for Education in this province, Mbali Frazer, to promptly appoint a specialised conflict resolution committee to investigate the root causes of these violent occurrences.…

Sitting in the sweltering summer heat of Tehran, we had come to Behesht-e Zahra, the cemetery of the martyrs of Iran and where the mausoleum of that country’s revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, is located. June 4 was the 34th anniversary of the death of Khomeini. The commemoration ordinarily entails listening to his successor as Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “Supreme leader” is a simple direct translation of the endearment in Farsi. An “ayatollah” is a high-ranking religious leader of Shia Muslims. A wide range of guests, including members of the diplomatic core, high-ranking clerics from neighbouring countries, both Sunni and Shia, as well as international experts, had gathered in the 20km² complex and where proceedings promptly started at 8am. Listening attentively to Ayatollah Khamenei reflect on the life of…

EASTERN Cape Premier Oscar Mabuyane must be thinking of himself as some sort of an untouchable as he has sought to interdict the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) from probing his alleged involvement in a qualifications scandal at the University of Fort Hare. Mabuyane cannot reasonably expect the public not to be suspicious when he makes such a move, especially if he has nothing to hide. We are not suggesting he is guilty of anything, far from it. That is what this SIU probe aims to establish. But a public representative who attempts to prevent another arm of government, in particular law enforcement agencies, from doing their job, leaves much to be desired. Mabuyane has turned to the Bhisho High Court to challenge a proclamation President Cyril Ramaphosa signed authorising the…

New York has been ranked the most expensive city for expatriates, overtaking Hong Kong, which held the top spot for four years but was pushed to second place in a 2023 global cost-of-living study. London held its position at number four in the annual study conducted by ECA International, which compared costs faced by expatriates in 207 cities around the world. In North America, rankings for all US cities have risen this year, primarily driven by the strength of the US dollar, the study said. New York edged past Hong Kong, in particular, due to significant rise in rental costs as demand soared post the Covid pandemic. Barring London, all UK cities dropped in global rankings despite the ongoing cost of living crisis felt locally. “The cost of living crisis…

Berlin: German police said they smashed a human trafficking network yesterday, accused of smuggling hundreds of people, with six suspects arrested across Germany, Romania and Bulgaria. The suspects were believed to have trafficked more than 560 people into Germany, and more than 300 migrants to Romania, federal police said. The probe began after accounts were collected from Turkish and Syrian nationals in the border regions of Austria, Czech Republic and Poland. The migrants were allegedly forced to hide among cargo in trucks “under inhumane conditions for several days” after being taken from Timisoara in Romania. | AFP…

Former president Jacob Zuma plans to appeal the Pietermaritzburg High Court ruling which yesterday set aside his private prosecution of State advocate Billy Downer and journalist Karyn Maughan. Zuma instituted the private prosecution for the alleged leak of documents about his medical condition ahead of an application that was brought for an adjournment of his criminal trial on the grounds of ill health. Downer is the lead prosecutor in the arms deal corruption case in which Zuma is on trial in the Pietermaritzburg High Court. In a ruling handed down yesterday, judges Thokozile Masipa, Gregory Kruger and Jacqui Henriques set the summonses in Zuma’s private prosecution cases aside. They granted interdicts, preventing Zuma from taking any further legal steps or private prosecutions against Downer and Maughan and ordered that Zuma…

At an underwater mountain in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists have drilled nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor and pulled up an unprecedented scientific bounty – pieces of the Earth’s rocky mantle. The record-breaking achievement has electrified geoscientists, who for decades have dreamed of punching through miles of the Earth’s crust to sample the realm that makes up most of the planet. The new expedition, by an ocean drilling vessel called the JOIDES Resolution, did not technically drill into the mantle, and the hole isn’t the deepest ever drilled beneath the ocean floor. Instead, researchers cruised to a special “tectonic window” in the North Atlantic where drills don’t have to tunnel as far to strike pay dirt. Here, the rocks of the mantle have been pushed close…

The ANC was once a gallant liberation movement that fought against the tyranny and oppression of the apartheid government in South Africa. The party was led by great men and women who sacrificed their lives to ensure that all South Africans, regardless of race, had equal rights and opportunities. But, unfortunately, the party has undergone a total transformation, becoming worse than the very entity it fought against. The question is, what happened to the ANC? The answer is simple – the leaders within the ANC have failed to uphold the values and principles that the party was founded upon. They have become complacent, self-serving and corrupt, forgetting the legacy of their predecessors and what they stood for. In the words often attributed to of Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary…

’TWAS the night of the St Clement’s arts soirée. ’Twas dark and chilly, no lights at all. Eskom were playing their part in the drama. Sitting outside? On a chilly night like this? Yes, the ladies in charge said sternly. Then voilà! On came the lights. Viva Eskom! And sitting out there among the trees and shrubbery was the biggest crowd I’ve seen at St C, a-sippin’ at various warming liquids. We were there to bid farewell to Rick and Gill Andrew, vocalists who have been mainstays at St Clement’s for many years, not just as performers but as organisers of the events as well. Playing with them was “Axeman” Alan Judd, third member of the trio The Survivors. His music will not be lost to Durban. Where are Rick…

The board of Denel faces the prospect of being subpoenaed and also having to explain why the costs of a cancelled meeting with the public accounts watchdog should not be borne by it personally. This after the board snubbed a meeting this week with the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) despite assurances over the past weekend that it would have some representation available to attend. The Special Investigating Unit was to have briefed the MPs on the investigations it was conducting at the entity. Denel is one of the state-owned enterprises under Public Enterprises that requested to submit its annual reports to Parliament after the stipulated deadline last year. Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa found the snubbing of the meeting to be a dereliction of duty and undermining the work…

As the municipal financial year draws to a close, KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Bongiwe Sithole-Moloi, has raised concern over unspent Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG) funds in some municipalities. The MEC said the department was fully committed to providing assistance and support to all municipalities through their MIG officials. She said the MIG officials would actively engage with municipalities to improve their planning processes. “Despite the challenges that have contributed to this predicament, we remain optimistic that, with the necessary support, we can effectively address this issue and reduce under expenditure,” said Sithole-Moloi. The department said according to the April 2023 Division of Revenue Act (Dora) reports, an amount of over R1.17 billion that was allocated for the MIG remains underutilised across all municipalities in the province,…

80% of South Africans are dependent on public health care and at higher risk in outages ROLLING blackouts, implemented to keep the grid stable, are destabilising an already strained health-care system. The responsibility and duty of care – keeping patients alive – has become harder for health workers in South African hospitals. Globally, at least a billion people access health facilities that lack reliable access to electricity. Regarded as a basic resource, electricity is required for lighting, ventilation, communication, water supply, life-saving medical procedures and infection prevention. The lack of electrification support for the health-care sector is especially detrimental due to the high burden of disease in South Africa, especially in respect of maternal and child health, HIV/Aids and tuberculosis, non-communicable diseases and injury. Our system is reactionary and not…

Thousands of people on both banks of the Dnipro River abandoned their inundated homes as floodwaters crested across the south yesterday after the destruction of a vast dam on the front line between Russian and Ukrainian forces that each blamed the other for. Residents waded through flooded streets carrying children on their shoulders, dogs in their arms and belongings in plastic bags while rescuers used rubber boats to search areas where the waters were above head height. Ukraine said the flood would leave thousands of people without access to drinking water, swamp tens of thousands of hectares of agricultural land and turn more into deserts. “If the water rises for another metre, we will lose our house,” said Oleksandr Reva, in a village on the bank, who was moving his…

ROME: Pope Francis was admitted to a Rome hospital yesterday for another abdominal operation under general anaesthesia, this time to repair a hernia most likely caused by scars from surgery in 2021. The surgery will make it the third hospital stay for Francis since cardinals chose the Argentinian as the first Latin American pope in 2013 and is the latest in a string of health problems in recent years. The Vatican said he was expected to stay for “a number of days” to allow for full recovery. All of the pope’s private and general audiences had been cancelled until June 18. | Reuters…

GETTING Inter Milan to Saturday’s Champions League final is the latest achievement in Simone Inzaghi’s understated managerial career which has highlighted his ability to perform against the odds. Inzaghi, 47, spent his playing career firmly in the shadow of his older brother Filippo, a prolific goalscorer for Italy’s biggest clubs, a two-time European champion and World Cup winner. The younger Inzaghi, also a striker, played most of his career for Lazio, where he is loved by fans despite a modest goal record and a single league title won 23 years ago. However in the managerial game it is Simone who is leading the way, at the helm of one of Europe’s traditional powerhouses while Filippo slogs about in the lower leagues. And now he has a chances of winning the…